Japan’s largest conglomerate, Toyota Motor Corporation, will support the world’s first global Web3 hackathon. Polkadot’s leading parachain, Astar Network, has signed a deal to develop his Web3 use cases for Toyota employees.
According to the company’s official press release, automakers are looking to improve their operations by adopting the Web3 environment. Toyota expects the latest online hackathon to mark the beginning of the process.
Toyota dives deep into blockchain technology
Astar, a multi-chain smart contract and decentralized application (dApp) network, announced its first Web3 hackathon on February 1st. The important news, however, is that it is being funded by Toyota Motor Corporation. Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe commented on Toyota’s participation in the initiative:
Needless to say, Toyota is Japan’s largest company and one of the world’s leading international companies. We are very excited to host the Web3 Hackathon at Astar with Toyota. The event aims to develop the first proof-of-concept DAO tool for Toyota employees. Once a good tool is created, Toyota employees will interact with Astar Network on a daily basis.
Sota Watanabe
According to the release, this will be Toyota’s first Web3 event to develop technology that supports the vision of the international automaker to improve its corporate operations. The Astar Foundation pledged to donate his $100,000 to the event. This will be used to support prizes for excellent projects selected by Toyota.
At Astar Network, developers create Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) support tools that improve Toyota’s business decision-making and team management.
The hackathon will be held at COSMIZE Event Hall, Astar Network’s first metaverse, along with the Web3 utilization theme. At the time of writing, Aster (ASTR) was trading at his $0.06, up 10.5% the day after the announcement. The token’s price has risen 53% since last month, but is still 86% below its all-time high.
The move comes as Japan’s Web3 strategy was pushed earlier this year by stakeholders keen to reduce red tape and speed up the decision-making process. Currently, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has his Web3 Policy Office (METI). In November, the country’s digital ministry announced it would create his DAO to investigate Web3 technology.
This is not the first time Toyota has dabbled in cryptocurrencies and blockchain. In 2020, his IT department at Toyota partnered with Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DeCurret to establish a Toyota-branded digital token.
In 2020, Toyota established a Blockchain Lab to explore the future of distributed ledger technology and its applications in the automotive industry.
While international automakers may adopt tools developed at hackathons for their operational transparency and efficiency, Astar Network will provide the right environment for developers to assist them in product development. will be
Astar Network Leads Asia in Web3 Adoption
This is not the first time that Astar, which enables developers to create interoperable decentralized applications (dapps), has collaborated with a major Japanese company. NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile network, said in November that it would work with Astar Foundation and Accenture to accelerate Web3 adoption. Astar was also named “Product of the Year” by the Japan Blockchain Association in December.
According to data from DefiLlama, Astar Network’s total value lock (TVL) is around $42 million, while decentralized trading platform ArthDex’s TVL is around $17 million (40%). Additionally, the network’s native token, ASTR, has grown by nearly 50% this year, with a market cap of $234.5 million, according to CoinMarketCap.
Astar announced the Cross-Virtual Machine (XVM) earlier this month, allowing projects built on top of it to communicate with the rest of the smart contract ecosystem.
This was the first big product under the company’s 2023 strategy to allow developers to experiment with different contract contexts. This feature also helps develop a wide range of complex applications with several use cases, such as verifying ownership of digital assets.
Meanwhile, Astar Network last summer announced a deal with blockchain company Alchemy to accelerate Web3 development on the Polkadot platform.
Astar aims to become a blockchain-backed company in Japan. Astar is dedicated to supporting web3 in Japan with the launch of Startale Labs Japan. However, no Japanese company has the experience of operating and developing L1 public blockchains that have been successful elsewhere.
Japanese government, enterprises and web3 solutions are actively cooperating with Astar to build a global platform originating in Japan. Astar is stepping up its efforts to usher in a “New Era”.
